Struggle inspires invention and innovation, and the pandemic has inspired many to find solutions to the “new normal” of our lives. Startup Blink, a mapping and research center, has gathered almost all the COVID-19 innovations in one place in the Coronavirus Innovation Map.
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A global directory with hundreds if not thousands of solutions, the map is a testament to the fact that creativity is born out of necessity.
So far, these are the nine Filipino inventions and innovations that have literally been put on the map:
1| Zennya Health
With ECQ lifted and GCQ in its place, Zennya Health can help you keep track of the workforce still needed in the office. The app asks employees to fill out their health data before each workday, measuring their temperature, blood pressure, and other health-related measurements. It’s a means to ensure everyone at work is healthy, and a helpful tool for contract tracing should the need arise.
2| StaySafe.ph
A social distancing system, StaySafe.ph is a community-driven app that tells you the locations where probable, suspected, and confirmed COVID-19 cases were found so you can easily avoid these areas. StaySafe is also a helpful tool in contact tracing and health condition tracing, ensuring that the community as a whole is protected from the pandemic.
3| Project Greengrass
With most of the country still under quarantine, curfew is still in place, but it’s not always easy to enforce curfew if you can’t be everywhere at once. Things.ph’s Project Greengrass is the solution to this as it provides the online community free CCTW monitoring of real-time street activity. This is a community- or barangay-focused project that can help LGUs enforce quarantine measures. Things.ph already has another project launched: Curiociti, a crowd density map that can help you ensure you stay away from crowded areas.
4| Fight COVID
Fight COVID is a website and platform that has compiled almost everything you need to know about the current pandemic. Knowledge is gold in these troubling times, so Fight COVID has done the job of gathering information for you. It also lets users access the current COVID-19 numbers, case tracker, transport dashboard, World Health Organization guidelines, and organizations accepting donations.
5| UP Test Kits
The University of the Philippines’ coronavirus test kits were rolled out in March after just a few weeks in the works. The brilliant scientists in UP were able to develop a test kit that could complete test results in less than two hours. Another upside of the UP test kits is that they were priced just a fraction of the cost of foreign test kits, helping the entire country in its testing program.
6| Sakay’s Frontliner Commuting Guide
With public transportation still not running at full capacity, it’s now become a true conundrum getting around Metro Manila. Sakay, the Filipino commuter’s guide, has redirected its efforts by giving directions to the P2P buses and public shuttles scattered across the city, as well as their schedules.
7| Dashboard Philippines
Quarantine might encourage everyone to stay at home, but some people still need to go to work, the hospital, etc. Dashboard Philippines is a platform that helps Filipinos traverse the new COVID-19 world, informing users of open establishments, shuttle routes, and more. For those who are worried they might have COVID-19, the platform also has a database of open hospitals throughout the country.
8| Edukasyon.ph’s Online Education Network
The education-tech startup Edukasyon has been growing momentum for the last few years, and when the pandemic hit, the platform offered free accounts to all senior high school, college, and technical-vocational institutions. This is more than just a network for schools—Edukasyon allowed these schools a chance to still accept and process online applications, ensuring these schools have a shot at survival as some schools are not so lucky.
9| COVID19 Philippine Data and Case Tracker
There are now many case trackers online, but this one might be the most detailed and helpful in terms of analytics and information on individual cases. It keeps track of the location of cases in real-time and also graphs out the data to see if we really are flattening the curve.
